Thirty-three Vancouver Christian leaders wrote a public letter admonishing Graham for saying “Islam is a ‘very evil and wicked religion’" and for “portraying ... U.S. President Donald Trump as intrinsically aligned with the Christian church.” Photo: Graham takes the stage in Alabama. Mark Wallheiser / PNG

Since Graham also has a habit of telling Christians who disagree with him that they’re not real Christians, it’s another reason he’s been drawing spikey local and international media attention for his March 3-5 crusade at Rogers Arena.

It did not help public-relations efforts that Graham is bringing his incendiary politics to B.C. just four weeks after a gunman murdered six Muslims in an attack in a Quebec mosque.

The evangelist, a leading figure of the Religious Right, has been asked to stay away by Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and gay Councillor Tim Stevenson, who is also a clergyman. Both politicians said the visit threatens “public safety.”

As if that’s not enough, Graham has the bad luck of coming to a city in which Roman Catholic, evangelical and mainline Protestant clergy, representing more than half the city’s one million Christians, have been honing the art of ecumenism.

Thirty-three Christian leaders, including Catholic Archbishop Michael Miller, wrote a public letter admonishing Graham for saying “all Muslims should be banned from the U.S. because Islam is a ‘very evil and wicked religion’ at war with the Christian West” and for “portraying the election, administration and policies of U.S. President Donald Trump as intrinsically aligned with the Christian church.”

As with storms, Graham’s venture into Vancouver has raised many conflicts — over hate speech, free speech, immigration, religion, sexuality, hypocrisy, American imperialism, Islam and the merging of church and state.

Various interpretations of God, love and Jesus are also, of course, coming into the whirl. It almost seems like a reckoning.

Is it really a question of Christian ‘unity?’

When I first began last summer to research the evangelical Christians who opposed Graham’s visit, his top officials warned me it would be unfortunate to publish anything about it because it would threaten “Christian unity.”

But the plea rang a bit hollow, since Graham himself, unlike his moderate father Billy Graham, is no champion of unity. Graham has declared, for instance, “you cannot stay gay and call yourself Christian.”

In a city that prides itself on celebrating “diversity,” it makes more ethical sense to air differing views.

What’s the best response to Graham’s crusade?

Some politicians, Christians and non-religious people have asked Graham to not darken the city’s door.

However, while some of Graham’s opponents accuse him of engaging in hate speech about Muslims, gays and atheists, his defenders (and even some of his opponents) have countered that free speech should prevail.

Separate from the legal argument that Graham’s denunciations might not add up to hate speech in Canada (since they don’t promote genocide, for instance), there is a broader view.

As Prof. Michael McDonald, former head of the University of B.C.’s Centre for Applied Ethics, says, “The world is very raw right now.”

If Graham was to show up this week in Quebec City, site of the mosque attack, or in extremist-roiled cities of Europe or the Middle East, the ethicist said, his crusade “literally could be a dangerous event,” possibly inciting violence.

“You don’t play with matches in a gasoline-soaked environment,” McDonald said. But Metro Vancouver is different.

McDonald likens the city, with climatic accuracy, to “a really damp place with lots of rain. So I wouldn’t be worried that Graham’s visit will cause a blaze. You’ll likely just get a lot of smoke.”

Instead of trying to stop Graham at the border (as the evangelist would like to do with Muslims), McDonald finds it preferable he come to Vancouver to face the music.

Rather than suppressing speech, McDonald said let Graham be confronted about his “obnoxious” views. Minds may be transformed.

Does ‘bigot’ label confuse the debate?

Opponents might also be confusing issues by calling Graham a “bigot,” at least in regards to ethnicity in this city in which 45 per cent are foreign born.

Graham is thrilled to travel the world to convince different people, especially Muslims, Jesus Christ is the only “way,” and to share the “timeless message of God’s hope, love and redemption for all people regardless of ethnicity.”

So, instead of accusing Graham of being a bigot or racist, it’s more accurate to charge him with Christian triumphalism.

And some Canadian critics are doing just that, saying Graham is merging Christianity with the state.

Ron Dart, a political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley, says Graham preaches as if Christianity should be the official religion of the U.S., in the way Emperor Constantine turned the gentle ways of Jesus into a colonial tool of the Roman Empire.

Many congregations supporting Franklin Graham’s crusade are ethnically mixed or mono-ethnic, since the city is home to 100,000 mostly evangelical Chinese Christians and about 40,000 Korean Christians.

“The fact a substantive element of the church in Vancouver, conservative evangelicals, would bring Graham to Vancouver, given his many questionable comments and support of Trump, speaks much about a Canadian-American form of Constantine incarnate,” says Dart.

The you’re-not-welcome approach gives Graham’s global adherents the excuse to complain that Canada’s liberal political elite is persecuting Christians, at least their evangelical form of it.

Indeed, news outlets such as the anti-abortion Lifesite have been rallying the troops by claiming “Graham is not letting name-calling from a handful of ministers and left-wing politicians stop him from participating in Vancouver’s Festival of Hope.”

Given the danger of polarizing the North American population even further in the era of Trump, it seems wiser not to inadvertently fuel Graham’s combative brand of absolutism.

The stakes are high, in a way.

All sides in the Festival of Hope storm, including the atheists, claim to be standing up for greater respect. And the Christians involved believe they’re serving Jesus, even if old fault lines are coming to the fore.

Let’s hope Graham’s crusade does not incite any side to more exaggerated or empty rhetoric. Now is the time for articulate, frank airing of diverse opinions, differences.

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